Designer Jeans

ARTICLES ABOUT DESIGNER JEANS BY DATE - PAGE 2

By Jennifer Klesman, Orland Park. Very Special to the Tribune | December 21, 1999

Have you ever flipped through a magazine and seen a pair of Skechers that you just had to have? Ever walk into the Gap and had their commercials come to mind? Had a friend who owned the coolest Abercrombie shirt that you wished you had the money to buy? Call it the "cool factor," but brand names and logos are hotter than ever, and here's why. Terri Agins, a Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book "The End of Fashion," told KidNews that because people are basically all wearing the same kind of casual stuff, clothing manufacturers have to come up with new ways to make their clothes stand out. To make their cargo pants, jeans, fleece vests or sweatshirts different from someone else's, designers use logos and trademarks.

Oscar-winning costume designer Jean Louis, who made dresses for Nancy Reagan, Marilyn Monroe and a bevy of Hollywood stars, has died. Mr. Louis, 89, who died last Sunday in his Palm Springs home, won the Academy Award in 1956 for costume design for the movie "The Solid Gold Cadillac." He donated the gold statuette to a museum in his native Paris. Born Jean Louis Berthault in Paris, he designed costumes for more than 60 movies and was nominated for Oscars 14 times for such movies as "From Here to Eternity," A Star is Born," "Pal Joey," "Judgment at Nuremberg" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie.

The cultural phenomenon that accompanied Hideo Nomo's meteoric rise to stardom last season has basically gone the way of designer jeans and break dancing. But very last in the line of mourners is the Dodgers right-hander himself. To Nomo, the death of Nomomania means he is finally being regarded as a pitcher, not a gimmick.

Jean Muir, the British fashion classicist whose design career spanned three decades, died Sunday in London. She was 66. She died of breast cancer at the London Clinic, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph. Often referred to as the doyenne of British fashion, Miss Muir, as she insisted everyone call her, designed starkly simple clothes. A perfectionist who tried on everything she designed, she was best known for matte jersey dresses, supple suedes, featherlight punched leathers and cashmere sweaters.

Ten years ago, a very young Brooke Shields made that now-famous statement in a Calvin Klein Jeans commercial: "Want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing." Post-Pretty Baby, pre-Princeton, she was suggestive and innocent. Created before Calvin Klein's graphic trademark became the naked form, the spot bristled with just enough sexual innuendo to cause a storm. It also sent jeans sales through the roof. Brooke as spokesnymph was followed by a revolutionary campaign that used video in a fresh way: The camera locked on a model speaking in her own words, telling a quirky, personal, productless story.

With the advent of "designer" jeans in the late `70s, a whole new advertising genre was born: cinema derriere. Terribly indelicate, this rear-end-centered imagery formed the new bottom of the advertising chain. Jeans were sold as the new sexual accessory for the few remaining go-go years of the singles scene. By the mid `80s, the idea of designer jeans had peaked, the target market was aging, and even the most recalcitrant advertisers had developed a range of product lines and imagery.

Young girls wear them. Fashion magazines glamorize them. Rock stars flaunt them. And mothers try to fit them into the family budget. As the chic badge of the teenage set, designer labels have replaced the `60s beehive hairdo and the `70s mini-skirt as the apparel de rigueur of hordes of youths trying to fit in. In a society where name brands are pasted on everything from stadium cups to underwear, it perhaps is not surprising that these...

Will our love affair with names never end? Obviously not. During a matter of mere days recently, we learned that: -- Princess Stephanie--as in Monaco--is putting her name on a line of swimsuits. -- Ferrari--as in the Italian auto company--is about to appear on a group of Cartier accessories, things such as sportwatches, sunglasses, attache cases. -- Richard Simmons--as in ear-rattling exercise--is the man behind Curves, a new sportswear line for large-sized women to be produced especially for Montgomery Ward.